Sounds to me like you're talking about a fiat church problem - where the message of the Church is increasingly influenced by State grants and consessions that are dangled in front of them. Christ rejected material gain, power & rulership when the Devil offered it. Matthew 7 proves that Christ will say to the Church "I never knew you, get away from me you workers of lawlessness." Without this understanding, I too would have been put off "Christianity" and become an atheist. A life without your Lifegiver is no life.
Discussion
Can you be specific on the state grants and concessions? It’s not like these issues are specific to one country. What state grants are causing the Vatican to cover up priests raping kids and keeping the priests in the church? What state programs incentivize pastors to own million dollar mansions and drive porches. It’s not like these issue are recent either. Corruption has plagued religious leaders since the beginning of religion, fiat money or not.
The root of the church’s problem is that all churches currently require a central figure that has unquestioned interpretive power over the Word for their church. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
I had my awakening during the plandemic. When I started to dig, I found many newspaper articles online announcing that the State was handing out huge amounts of money to faith-based charities under the banner of “Covid relief”. But I’d heard enough accounts about Public Relations narrative sculpting training, to know there was more to the story. Then I found a blog by a small church which did not have the writing skill to cloak the pitch that the State had made to them – so they pretty much repeated it word-for-word on their own blog – right there out in public. It went something like this: “Many people don’t trust the government or big business/pharma. But they trust us as their faith leaders. If we tell them to take the jab, they’ll listen – because we have built a relationship of trust with them over many years – which can now be leveraged.”
Upon realizing what was going on, I then began to make public information requests to establish whether my church had also taken the bribe money. I knew my church would never tell me. So I had to go to the other side of the transaction. I have never been given such a run-around in my life. They broke every rule in the book not to answer my question. And by not answering it, they answered it.
As for your next point, I agree that financial corruption is not necessarily linked to serious sexual crime. But I would say that time preference plays a role in both. If you train your brain to succumb to your short-term desire in one area in life, it’s potentially going to let you down in other areas too. I agree that the impact of time preference predates fiat money.
As for your next point, I don’t know enough yet to say that EVERY church has a “central figure” that has “unquestioned interpretive power”. I’m still fact-finding. It’s a slow and difficult process and life has other demands.
I agree that power corrupts imperfect people.
Thank you for taking the time to respond to me and for challenging my statements. It helps me think clearer.
I wonder what https://iris.to/drjeff@NostrVerified.com would say